Posted By Tough Cookie Mommy on August 30, 2010

   
    It is not uncommon that my husband and I disagree sometimes on some of the small details of how we are raising our two sons.  The important thing is that we wholeheartedly agree on the larger, and most important aspects of our parenting.  Obviously, we are on the same page with regards to teaching them respect, honesty, integrity, and all the other good stuff that makes for good parenting.  Actually, this is something that we agreed upon as early as our courtship and was one of the things that convinced me that this was the person that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with and to raise a family with.
   
    Now, back to the little parenting details that we often disagree upon…  Where do I even begin?  It stands to reason that two totally different people who were raised by totally different parents would have some totally different ideas regarding how certain things are done sometimes.  I suppose you could call these “pet peeves.”  I was raised in a Nuclear household with two siblings and he was raised by a single mother with no siblings.  I spent most of my childhood living in Europe and he spent all of his childhood living in the United States.  As you can see, these differences make for some very interesting parenting moments where we have had to compromise and discuss how we were going create a united front and not undermine each other’s parenting.

    Let us begin with debatable parenting rule #1:  You must eat all of your food before you drink anything.

    According to my husband, allowing the kids to drink would fill them up with liquid and cause them to not eat all of their food.  Also, he claims that one digests food better if they eat first and drink later.  Now, I’m not here to debate back and forth about whether his theory can be scientifically proven but, I disagree.  There is no way that I could ever eat an entire meal without drinking something simultaneously.  As a result, I would never expect my children to do so either.  In his defense, he was raised this way by his mother and, to this day, will eat an entire meal before drinking anything.  So, in his mind, he wasn’t asking anything of his children that he wasn’t prepared to do himself.  The victorious parent in this debate?  ME, because I made a better “drinking keeps them from choking” argument.

    This leads us to debatable parenting rule #2:  Children should tuck their undershirts into their underwear so they don’t stick out.

    A lot of you are probably chuckling over this one but it is no laughing matter to me.  I was raised to tuck your undershirt into your underwear because it looks sloppy if it sticks out from under your blouse or your pants.  My husband was not raised to place much importance on this and actually states that it is uncomfortable for boys to have their undershirts tucked into their underwear.  The victorious parent in this debate?  HIM, because little boys are generally sloppy when they play and their undershirts end up sticking out anyway most of the time.

    Lastly, we come to debatable parenting rule #3:  Boys should wash themselves with washcloths and not loofah sponges.

    Again, another funny one that actually sparked a debate in our home.  According to my husband, boys are supposed to wash themselves, when they shower, with a washcloth.  I agree that washcloths are probably more sanitary since they get washed regularly, however, I have found it easier for them to use the loofah sponges because they are able to lather them up with soap better.  The victorious parent in this debate?  ME, because we tried it his way and the boys went through a whole bottle of body wash in one day just trying to effectively lather up their washcloths.

    Luckily, these little battles of the will are few and far between and almost insignificant.  In the end, we are in total agreement about the parenting debates that really matter.  It is important to validate each other’s backgrounds and to allow some of the positive things that we both experienced and learned from our own parents to come through in our parenting.  It is even more important to make sure that, at least in front of the children, Mommy and Daddy are in total agreement about everything.  Remember, kids can smell fear…

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Categories: Parenting
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